Math Academy Out To Recruit Minorities

December 11, 1990|By Casey Banas, Education writer.

An Illinois Mathematics and Science Academy report issued Monday showed that its percentage of Asian-American students far exceeds the statewide population percentage, whites are about the same and blacks and Hispanics lag behind.

Though Asian-Americans comprise 2.5 percent of the Illinois population, they make up 27 percent, or 148 of 548, of students at the three-year publicly-supported residential high school in Aurora.

Currently, 65 percent of academy students are white, while whites comprise 66.3 percent of Illinois residents. Though blacks make up 22.2 percent of the state`s population, 5 percent of academy students are black. Hispanics are 8.8 percent of Illinois citizens, and 2 percent of academy students are Hispanic.

LuAnn Smith, the academy`s admissions director, told a meeting of school trustees Monday that the school has mounted a recruitment drive in Chicago designed to attract more minority applicants.

Among the initiatives is that the academy last year opened an office near the University of Illinois at Chicago to counsel prospective students. It also has a Saturday morning program in math and science for high school freshmen at the university.

In May, the academy invites 6th through 8th graders from up to 10 Chicago elementary schools for a day at the Aurora school.

The academy is battling a problem of Chicago under-representation. In 1986-87, the year of its first class, 4 percent of students were from Chicago. In the current sophomore class, 14 percent are from Chicago, and 10 percent for the academy`s three classes.